How To Scrape Data From Linkedin? [2023 Step by Step Guide]

LinkedIn is a popular social networking platform for professionals that has over 700 million users worldwide.

It is a treasure trove of data that can be utilized for various purposes like recruitment, marketing, and sales.

However, manually extracting data from LinkedIn can be time-consuming and overwhelming.

This is where web scraping comes in handy.

In this 2023 step-by-step guide, we will walk you through the process of scraping data from LinkedIn, including the tools and techniques you need to know.

So, let’s dive in and explore the world of LinkedIn data scraping.

How To Scrape a Linkedin Profile?

Export Linkedin profiles in 3 steps:

1. Copy the Linkedin URL
2. Paste in into Phantombuster
3. Get the profile data in a CSV file

1. Copy the Linkedin URL

The first step is to simply copy the Linkedin URL in the search bar when you visit the Linkedin profile URL.

This is what every linkedin scraping tools will take as an input to extract the data.

2. Paste in into Phantombuster

Once you copied the URL, go to Phantombuster and create an account.

Then:

1. Click on “Solutions”
2. Select “Linkedin”
3. write “Profile” in the search bar
4. Select “Linkedin Profile Scraper”

Once the Linkedin Profile Scraper is opened, paste the URL of the Linkedin Profile you want to scrape.

You will then be prompted to install the Phantombuster Chrome extension.

They use it to get your Linkedin cookies and scrape the profile on your behalf

After the extension is installed, you can click on “Connect to Linkedin” and go to the next steps.

3. Get the profile data in a CSV file

Before you launch the Linkedin profile scraping, Phantombuster will ask you if you want to connect an email finder.

You can then click on “Launch” to start the scraping of the linkedin profile.

After a few minutes, the scraping will be completed and you will see a preview of the data that has been extracted.

You can now proceed to download.

All the info of the Linkedin profile will be exported to a CSV file.

Among the data points you extracted by the algorithm will be:

1. First name
2. Last name
3. Company name
4. Job Title
5. Job description
6. Connections count
7. and much more…

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That’s a good technique to scrape a single linkedin profile.

But what if you got hundreds or thousands linkedin profiles to scrape?

Don’t want to copy-paste thousands of lines in an Excel file right?

No problem.

Here are some solution

How To Scrape Linkedin in Bulk?

6 techniques to scrape Linkedin in bulk:

1. Scrape Linkedin searches
2. Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator
3. Scrape Linkedin group members
4. Scrape Linkedin event attendees
5. Scrape Linkedin post commenters
6. Scrape Linkedin from Google

1. Scrape Linkedin Basic Search

Phantombuster also allows you to collect data from linkedin searches.

For that you must use the Linkedin Search Export phantom.

Note that you won’t get the same data here.

You will only get the data displayed on the search results.

If you want to all the data from the profile you must run the Linkedin Profile Scrape phantom on all the URL you extracted from the search.

You won’t get the company info like company info like size, website, or industry either.

Plus they are some limitations on the linkedin free search engine:

1. The number of search you can do per month is limited
2. Search results are limited to 1000
3. You can only scrape 80–150 profiles per day

That can make your lead generation process a bit complicated.

Hopefully there are way to bypass linkedin search limits. More info on the video.

2. Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator

Linkedin Sales Navigator is the premium search engine designed for Sales. It offers much more search filters and feature to generate B2B leads.

If you want to make Linkedin your main acquisition channel, you should get a Sales Navigator license. It’s really worth it.

If you don’t know so much about the tool, here is a Sales Navigator tutorial you can watch to get an idea of what it is capable of.

Scraping Linkedin Sales Navigator is way easier than scraping Linkedin free search engine.

1. You have unlimited search
2. Access to the first 2500 results
3. You can scrape up to 2500 profiles per day
4. You get access to all the data (profile + company)

Using a tool like Evaboot, you can export leads from Linkedin Sales Navigator in just one click. The data collection process is really easy.

Once you installed the Evaboot Chrome extension, a new button “Export with Evaboot” will appear on the search and lists pages.

You just need to press it go all your leads into a clean CSV file.

Here is a video demo of the tool.

Evaboot does not only scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator, it also:

1. Clean the data
2. Double-check your search results
3. Find emails
4. Verify emails

That way you get ready-for-outreach CSV files in just one click.

3. Scrape Linkedin groups members

Searches are not the only thing you can export from Linkedin.

You can also extract Linkedin group members.

For that you can use the Phantombuster Linkedin Group Members Export if you don’t have a Sales Navigator account.

If you have a Sales Navigator, you can use the Group filter and export the results with Evaboot. You will get more data and it will be cleaner.

Here is a video tutorial:

Groups are an interesting source of data to scrape on Linkedin because group members show interested for a particular topic.

You can use these interest to find qualified audiences and get icebreakers ideas for your linkedin prospecting messages.

4. Scrape Linkedin events attendees

Joining Linkedin groups is not the only way to show interest on Linkedin.

People also participate to Linkedin events.

The good news?

You can scrape Linkedin events attendees.

Phantombuster also got a tool for that: the LinkedIn Event Guests Export.

To use it, you must click on “Attend” to get access to the list of attendees. It won’t work if you do this operation before launching the scraping

Once you attend the linkedin event, you will be able to see all the linkedin event attendees and get their profile data into a CSV file.

Targeting linkedin event attendees is an excellent linkedin outreach strategy

You can reach out to them asking:

• Why they attend the event
• What they are expecting from it
• What did they think of it once it’s passed

A lot of icebreakers ideas to star genuine conversations.

To look for linkedin events that might gather members of your audience, you can use the linkedin search with the filter “Event”.

5. Scrape Linkedin posts commenters

You made a successful linkedin post and want to retarget the people who liked and commented it?

Easy.

Just use the Linkedin Post Commenters Export or the Linkedin Post Likers Export on Phantombuster.

You can then reach out to them mentioning the post, that’s a great way to start conversations with potential customers.

By the way, this is also a great way to steal your competitors’ audience on Linkedin.

If one of your competitors made a successful linkedin post, you can totally scrape the likes and commenters to reach out to them.

More on that in the video.

6. Scrape Linkedin from Google

Google indexes all the pages on the web.

That includes linkedin profiles.

You can actually extract Linkedin profiles URL’s from Google search results using a tool like ScaleSerp.

I explain the process in the video just above.

That is a really useful way to bypass the linkedin search limit.

If one day you come across this popup while you are searching on Linkedin, it means you reached the commercial use limit.

It means Linkedin has detected that you use the search engine for commercial or recruiting purposes.

They want you to buy Linkedin Recruiter or Sales Navigator.

Scrape Emails and Phone Numbers From Linkedin

One of the reason to scrape Linkedin is to get contact details like emails or phone numbers.

However, you will see that this kind of data is hard to get now.

Few people share their contact information publicly on Linkedin.

That is why you’d better use email and phone finders to complete the results of scraping

1. Scraping contact details from Linkedin

Only 30% of linkedin members share their contact details with their first degree connections.

5% share their phone numbers.

You see that is pretty low if you rely only on linkedin scraping to build email lists.

The thing is that it is even worse for 2nd and 3rd degree connection.

Only 5% share their emails publicly and 0.5% share their phone numbers.

So how to react?

The best way to get a maximum of emails is to combine linkedin scraping and email finder tools.

2. Find emails from Linkedin

When you are using Phantombuster to extract data from Linkedin, you should activate the email finder option.

You can buy email credits directly from Phantombuster or use another provider like Dropcontact.

That way Phantom will get emails from Linkedin scraping and from email finders at the same time.

If you want to get emails from Linkedin Sales Navigator, you can use the Evaboot email finder.

Really easy to use.

Simply click on “Find Emails” once your extraction is completed and Evaboot will add verified pro emails to your file.

Evaboot will use 3 methods to get a maximum of emails:

1. Linkedin scraping
2. Web scraping
3. Patter matching

Wondering what is pattern matching?

This technique is about finding the email pattern of the company like:

• firstname.lastname@company.com
• firstname@company.com
• lastname.firstname@company.com
• etc…

It’s also a very efficient technique to find someone’s email.

3. Find phone numbers from Linkedin

If you want to find phone numbers, the best thing is to upload your linkedin export into a phone finder tool like Rocket Reach or Datagma.

In this video you will find a tutorial on how to get phone numbers from Sales Navigator in bulk using Evaboot and Datagma.

You can apply exactly using the linkedin export you make with Phantombuster.

If you are picky and want to get phone numbers as you navigate on Linkedin, you can also use Datagma or Lusha.

These extensions will allow finding phone numbers directly from Linkedin profiles.

Can LinkedIn ban you for scraping?

Yes, LinkedIn can ban you for scraping if you don’t respect the limit they impose.

Free accounts can view up to 80 profiles per day, and premium accounts can view up to 150.

Stay within these limits and you won’t endanger your account.

LinkedIn has strict policies against scraping and uses advanced technology to detect and prevent scraping. If detected, LinkedIn may block your account.

But you don’t have to worry if you respect the rules.

Additionally, scraping can harm the privacy and security of LinkedIn users, making it a serious offense. Therefore, it is important to abide by LinkedIn’s policies and respect the privacy of its users to avoid any consequences.

If you buy a Sales Navigator subscription, it’s an additional security. If you give money to Linkedin, they will let you scrape a bit more data.

Using Evaboot, you can scrape up to 2500 leads per day on Sales Navigator. Much more than the 80 leads per day you can scrape with Linkedin basic and Phantombuster.

How can scraping LinkedIn data help you?

Scraping linkedin can help you in many ways:

1. Build qualified lead lists
2. Automate your outreach
3. Keep your CRM up to date
4. Find Ideal Candidates

1. Build qualified lead lists

Extracting data from Linkedin is the easiest and fastest way to build qualified lead lists for prospecting.

Even with the free search engine, you quickly build a list of ideal customers using the search filters.

Once you have your search results ready, you can extract the data and import it into your favorite sales tool to potentially automate your outreach.

But if you really want to make Linkedin your number one acquisition channel, you should go for Sales Navigator.

It offers much more filers and feature like:

• Account searches
• Lead lists
• Lead and account alerts
• Saved searches

These features are really helpful to build efficient linkedin lead generation strategies.

2. Automate your outreach

If you feel you are loosing a lot of time on manual prospecting task, they are plenty of tools now that allow you to automate your linkedin prospecting.

Once you get these data:

• lead info
• company info
• linkedin URL’s
• Emails

You have all you need to cleanly automate your outreach.

You can even launch multichannel outreach campaigns

The linkedin automation tools you use will take your CSV as an input to personalize messages and reach out to the right people.

3. Keep your CRM up to date

When you start having a huge number of prospects in your CRM, it’s hard to keep all the data up to date.

That is why Linkedin is so powerful.

As people constantly updates their professional experience on their profiles, Linkedin database is almost always up to date.

So if you want to update your CRM with fresh data, you simply need to get the linkedin URLs of your prospects. Most CRM offers CSV upload features, they can be used to import new leads or update existing ones.

1. Get the Linkedin URLs of your leads
2. Scrape their data
3. Upload the fresh data into your CRM

That’s it. Your CRM is up to date.

4. Contact Ideal Candidates

Linkedin can be used to find leads but also to find the ideal candidates.

For that you can use Linkedin Recruiter or Linkedin Sales Navigator.

Linkedin Recruiter is more fitted to recruiting business or agencies. If you are just a company wanting to recruit of people, you can totally use Sales Navigator for recruiting.

You can extract candidates lists and automate your candidates outreach the same way you do it for leads.

What are the best scraping tools for LinkedIn?

3 must-have linkedin scraping tools:

1. Surfe
2. Evaboot
3. Phantombuster

1. Surfe

Surfe allow you to connect your CRM to Linkedin. By using it you and your sales team can automate a lot of manual data entry tasks.

They will basically scrape Linkedin and directly send the data to your CRM so you don’t have to spend hours copy-pasting data.

Surfe allows users to automate their outreach efforts, such as sending connection requests and personalized messages to potential leads.

The tool also offers a range of advanced filters that enable users to target their outreach efforts to specific groups of people based on their industry, location, and other criteria.

Additionally, Surfe provides users with detailed analytics and reports that help them to track their performance and optimize their outreach strategy.

2. Evaboot

If you spend a lot of your time on Sales Navigator, Evaboot can be a gamechanger.

The tool does 5 things:

1. Export leads
2. Clean the data
3. Double-check your leads
4. Find Emails
5. Verifiy the email

That way create ready-for-outreach prospect lists in just one click from Sales Navigator.

If you are used to spending hours cleaning your Sales Navigator exports:

• cleaning emojis
• cleaning names
• double-checking leads

Then the cleaning features might save you a lot of time.

Because getting data is good.

But getting clean data is better.

3. Phantombuster

The good thing about Phantombuster is that they cover a lot of uses cases.

It’s a kind of Swiss army knife you can use anytime you want to scrape data outside linkedin search engines like:

1. group members
2. event attendees
3. post commenters
4. poll voters
5. hashtags followers

A lot of things you won’t necessarily need all the time, but it’s great for to seize linkedin outreach or recruiting opportunities when you detect them.

They cover almost all uses cases so feel free to explore their Linkedin phantoms library.

Other Questions on Linkedin Scraping

Others questions you might have on Linkedin scraping:

• How long does linkedin scraping take?
• What is the scraping limit on linkedin?
• How to extract data from Linkedin using API?
• Can you scrape Linkedin data using Python?

How long does linkedin scraping take?

The duration of LinkedIn scraping depends on the size of the LinkedIn list being targeted. If the search is small, then the scraping process could take a few minutes to complete.

However, if the list is large, the process could take several hours to complete.

You shouldn’t be too impatient when you scrape linkedin as going too fast could get your account restricted.

What is the scraping limit on LinkedIn?

The scraping limit on LinkedIn is not officially disclosed, but we know that can you scrape 80 linkedin profiles per day with a free Linkedin account.

If you have a Linkedin premium account like Sales Navigator, you can go up to 150 profiles per day on the free search engine and up to 2500 per day on Sales Navigator.

How to extract data from LinkedIn using API?

LinkedIn has a powerful API that enables developers to extract data from the platform. The quantity of data you extract is limited compared to the scraping method.

To get started, you need to create a LinkedIn Developer account and register your application.

Once you have access to the API, you can use endpoints to retrieve data such as user profiles, companies, job listings, and more.

You can also use filters to refine your search and get specific data. It’s important to note that LinkedIn has strict rules about data usage, so it’s essential to comply with their terms and conditions.

Can you scrape LinkedIn data using Python?

Yes, it is possible to scrape LinkedIn data using Python.

LinkedIn provides an API that allows developers to access data from their platform.

However, the API has some limitations, such as rate limiting and access to only certain data fields.

As a result, developers often use web scraping techniques to extract data from LinkedIn.

This involves automating the process of navigating through LinkedIn pages and extracting relevant information using Python libraries such as Beautiful Soup and Selenium.

It obviously requires knowing how to code. If you don’t, you can always hire a freelancer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, scraping data from LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for gathering valuable insights and enhancing your linkedin prospecting strategies.

However, it’s crucial to remember that this process should be done responsibly and ethically, respecting LinkedIn’s terms of service and the privacy of its users.

With the right tools and techniques, you can extract meaningful data that can help you understand your audience better, identify industry trends, and make informed decisions that can drive your business forward.